The Rescue Team

The rest of the morning passed quickly. Once Loran gathered a large supply of firewood there was little to do besides cooking and drying more of the meat. There was a bit of tension when a small pack of about five Moss Wolves stumbled across the campsite, but aside from some aggressive growling, the group didn't attempt to pass through the spike barrier. They did help themselves to some of the meat that was still on the sled, but that was hardly a concern at this point.

Loran was mashing a few Energy Berries and Wolf's Boon together, hoping to make some more HP Potions, when he turned his head and began looking downriver.

"Looks like we've got company," he said with a small grin.

Yang quickly dropped the meat she was cooking for lunch, grabbing her shield and ax before jumping to her feet. "Wolves, pigs….ants?" she asked, saying the last word nervously.

"Calm down, it's people," he said, gesturing for her to sit down. "I guess the message either missed or they sent a search party anyway."

"So Sis is coming then…" Yang muttered, sitting down slowly.

"I don't know if it's-"

"My sister is coming," she said firmly. "After everything I said yesterday do you really think she wouldn't?"

Loran was silent, they both knew the answer to her question.

"Yang!"

Sure enough, after a few minutes, Yin was running along the river towards their campsite, along with Soze, Alexx, and Zed walking behind her.

Loran was surprised to see Zed here, he never left the village with a party, and this was a rescue, not a hunt. He also saw that Soze kept glancing at the tall spear fighter warily. He knew that Soze didn't trust Zed that much thanks to the rumors around the village, so Loran was curious why he was part of the search party.

Yang waved her arm as her sister approached, not really wanting to move on account of her leg. When Yin got close she easily jumped over the spike barrier, crouching as she landed next to Yang.

"What happened! You said you were hurt?" Yin asked with a slight panic.

"So you guys did get it," Loran said.

"Sis, it's alright, I'm not dying or anything," Yang said, surprised to see Yin so flustered. "That new monster we fought messed up my leg and Loran convinced me to wait until it healed up before heading back."

"How messed up are we talking here?" Soze asked as the rest of the group maneuvered through the barrier.

"It's a debuff called Minor Bone Fracture, it'll heal up in three days but irritating it could break it further," Loran explained. He then picked up one of the meat skewers Yang had been cooking, offering them to the group. "Anyone hungry?"

Having spent most of the morning making the long trek to find the two, the party quickly settled down for lunch.

"I have to say Soze, I'm surprised you let Zed come with you guys," Loran said questioningly once everyone had something to eat.

"I didn't," he said curtly, "it was just the three of us when we left the village, but after a while, he caught up to us and refused to go back."

"Obviously I had to come," Zed stated matter-of-factly, "there's some new monster out here powerful enough to cripple the best Tank in the village, and you expect me to just wait back home?"

"Really," Yang said, glancing at Zed with narrowed eyes, "so you weren't even a little concerned about us?" Yang didn't really expect Zed to care about her, but she knew that he and Loran were at least sort of friends.

"What's there to worry about?"

"Do you mean that in a 'you had faith in us' kind of way or an 'I don't care if you die' kind of way?" Loran asked, an unamused expression on his face.

Zed was about to respond but stopped himself, thinking for a moment. "....Both I guess?"

"....Not going to lie, I was expecting you to say you didn't care," Loran said.

An exaggerated look of shock came over Zed. "Loran do you really think so poorly of-"

"Yes," he said bluntly.

"Hehe, well that's fair," Zed chuckled.

"Okay seriously, what is up with you two?" a bewildered Yang asked. "Is this some morbid joke I'm not getting or are both of you just insane enough to not care about dying?"

"I'm sort of joking," Loran said calmly, "he's probably crazy."

Zed shrugged. "If I die I die."

"...." The others were silent for a moment. Aside from Loran and Alexx, none of them had much interaction with Zed and only knew what was said about him. Currently, all of those rumors of him being unhinged seemed to be true.

Zed quickly noticed the shift in the mood. "What's wrong?" he asked, sounding slightly amused, "If you have something to say then say it."

"....Alright, what the hell is wrong with you," Soze said pointing at Zed. Then he glanced at Loran and Alexx, "and why do you two hang out with him?"

Alexx shrugged. "I mean it's not like we talk about people dying all the time, usually the two of us just spar."

"And it's not like I try to hang around him," Loran said, raising his arms defensively, "he just sort of shows up and I don't tell him to leave."

Sighing, Soze turned to Zed, waiting for his answer.

"Honestly, I don't get why everyone else is so hung up on dying," he said casually. "I mean, I get that we're talking about death here, but it's not like we're totally safe in reality right? Hell, you could just be walking down the street and get hit by a truck."

Loran, Yin, and Yang all shuddered slightly at Zed's example, fortunately, no one else noticed.

"Surely you are not so foolish as to believe that New Eden Online is no different from reality?" Yin asked. "The vast wilderness alone means we must struggle to survive, and the monsters are an even greater threat."

"Sure, but isn't this the kind of stuff we all used to do anyway?" Zed asked. "Aside from the noobs, all of us are gamers. This is what we used to do for fun, now it's basically what we do for work." His eyes flashed as he recalled something else. "And besides, so far only one person has died, and it was because they overestimated themself."

"Plenty of people have almost died though," Soze said bitterly.

"And I'm not saying that they shouldn't be careful, I'm just saying that being all doom and gloom about it won't change anything."

"Yeah, but me and Loran being stuck out here alone wasn't just some existential crisis," said Yang, "and you still weren't worried."

"Would me being worried have made you two more safe? Perhaps my concern would magically make the wolves and hogs stay away from you till we got here?" he said in a mocking tone.

The group was silent as they listened. Technically none of what Zed said was untrue, but that didn't stop them from feeling that he was wrong. They realized that Zed wasn't simply logical, he seemed completely devoid of empathy. Even Alexx was quickly becoming uncomfortable with how blatant Zed was being about his lack of concern. The only one not surprised was Loran.

"Yeah yeah, we get it," Loran said, ignoring everyone else's discomfort, "Zed is a sociopath, can we move on?"

"You… seem quite blase about this Loran," said Yin.

He shrugged. "I've tried arguing about this with him before, and it was just a waste of time."

"Because I'm right," Zed said smugly.

"Don't you start."

"Fine, tell me about this new monster you found," Zed said, staring intently at Loran and Yang.

"Yeah," agreed Soze, glad for a change in topic, "you mentioned it was dangerous but how bad are we talking here?"

Loran quickly began telling the others about the Iron Ant fight and listing off what he and Yang had discovered about it. Just telling them about it being an ant the size of a small dog caused Yin and Soze to become nervous. Both understood that ants in reality had tremendous strength and speed proportional to their size, and Loran's retelling of the fight confirmed this. By the end of his explanation, it was clear that Iron Ants were on another level compared to the other creatures they had fought until now.

"These ants sound crazy strong," said Zed, "and you're telling me that this thing was only level 10?"

"Yeah, it seems to be the same situation as the Spined Deer."

"Wait, what do the deer have to do with this?" asked Yang, and Alexx also seemed confused.

"You know how our HP and SP are ten times our END stat?" explained Loran, "well, that has been the same for every other animal we've found, except for the Spined Deer and now the Iron Ant, who both seem to have it times fifteen. On top of that, they both have stat totals for what their levels should be."

"So what, they're some kind of higher tier of monster or something?" asked Alexx.

"Yep," said Loran, "but these things make the deer look cute. The Spined Deer just have those benefits pumped into being bigger and spikier. The Iron Ant is basically doing the same thing but an ant is damn near unstoppable once you scale it up a bit."

"Tell me about it," Yang said with a groan. "Honestly, the two of us could barely even-" Yang's eyes widened as she recalled something. "Oh yeah, I couldn't even scratch the thing, but Loran was attacking it weird and it worked for some reason."

"Weird how?" Alexx asked.

"I was using the backside of my pick," Loran held up one of his Bone Picks. The part where the handle met with the base of the spike was a solid chunk of bone about three inches across. "The item description for the Bone Pick has two different damage stats, one for piercing and one for bludgeoning."

"Now that you mention it," Yang said, "that thing is basically a club with a spike on the end."

"Yeah, and in a lot of games bludgeoning attacks usually have an advantage against heavy armor types, so I wanted to see if they helped with the ant."

"So they do have a weakness then," Zed grinned, but then frowned. "But wait, I use a spear, and I just got the Spear Fighter Skill! What the hell, spears can't be blunt, how am I supposed to fight these things?!"

"I guess you can go fuck yourself," Yang said, smirking.

"Well, we haven't gotten to their biggest advantage yet," Loran said, drawing everyone's attention.

"What do you mean?" Yang asked. "We've already covered everything that happened, what else is there?"

"The colony," Soze said. "Ants don't operate independently, if there's one, there will be thousands somewhere, maybe more."

"Exactly," Loran confirmed. "We're probably right on the edge of their territory and stumbled across one of their scouts. Going deeper will mean fighting them in groups, and the nest will be swarming with them."

Yang's eyes widened as she considered the possibility of fighting dozens, maybe even hundreds of Iron Ants, too many to stop as they latch onto her faster than she could rip off.

"Fuck," she said reflexively, the single word so filled with dread that Yin and Alexx nodded in agreement.